Australia (Part 2) - Great Ocean Road and Tasmania

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Great Ocean Road

So we left our hostel at ten in the morning on the 9th February to pick up our “Wicked” (being the company name) campervan for the next 8 days to be spent roughly traveling down and back again along the Great Ocean Road. Tracy thought she would ring up and get directions to the Wicked depot to be told they had double booked and let our campervan go and that we could pick up another one the next day. Fat lot of good that is as we had just checked out of the hostel and wanted it for that day. We had already booked a “Hippie Camper” with Apollo for our 35 day Sydney to Cairns trip in a week or two from now and they had a site in Melbourne too but their website says you have to take the campervan for ten days and of course we only wanted it for eight. So Tracy gave them a call just in case and because we have booked another one for thirty five days they decided to make an exception and let us take it for the eight days, good job too because I can tell you the “Wicked” vans are a pile of sh**e. I speak with first hand knowledge as that is what we had in Tasmania, but that is getting ahead of myself.

So somewhere around 2pm in Melbourne we picked up our far superior Hippie Camper (which incidentally was cheaper than the Wicked Van) and set off towards what is known as the Great Ocean Road. Before I go on, I should just say that Melbourne was a fine city and especially some of its suburbs (such as Carlton), it had a very relaxed, sitting around drinking coffees all day and just watching the world go by feel. I am not so sure its the place for Tracy and I to settle in right now, but I could definitely see the value in it if you wanted a quieter more relaxed vibe for a lifestyle or if you wanted a family life whilst still maintaining a bit of the city feel as opposed to Sydney which has more a big busy rushing around city feel to it, which I personally happen to love.

So the Great Ocean Road, its up for debate according to who you talk to, but approximately it starts around Torquay and finishes at Warrnambool which are some 250km apart. It was created to give men returning from the first world war and now living in the great depression a vital form of income in the form of a job and to link many of the towns together. It is now considered one of the most picturesque and great drives in the world. So as we got the van late and had to grab some supplies (Food etc) we didn't get too far and spent our first night at a campervan park in Torquay (some 100km from Melbourne). The site was fine, clean, good showers etc (even if they were only 4 minutes long) and our powered site cost us AUD $30 (incidentally all powered sites on this trip we found were between $25-$30 and un-powered sites were $20-$25 and these are out of season prices). Over the next three days we stayed at Bimbi park in the Great Otway national park just outside Apollo bay, Port Campbell and Port Fairy (about 30km past Warrnambool). As I said all sites were good but the Bimbi park site was fantastic, the setting was beautiful in the national park. It is known as “Sleeping beneath the Koala's” and indeed we did see a couple and that was without looking, but as we arrived to the park quite late we missed most of them, other people staying there said they had seen many that night and the day before. On route to Bimbi Park from Torquay we took a slight detour and stopped at the Erskine waterfalls, this was a pretty cool waterfall that you could get to the bottom off, maybe 50 meters or so in height and as is was a hot day I had to get my head in it to cool off. Tracy decided it wasn't that hot and didn't bother.

The route down was a pretty gentle drive of 100km or so and took in a bit of coast line that was very pretty and at other times was through fields and forest that I personally thought was very impressive.

The third day on the road saw us heading towards Port Campbell and the famous site of the 12 Apostles and just like the day before we took a slight detour of 20km or so towards Beech Forest and more waterfalls that are within a rainforest area of the Otway national park. Some ten minutes into a one hour round trip walk it started to rain (well it is a rainforest) and then it really went for it and absolutely lashed it down, this had the benefit of turning other people back and it left just Tracy and I and a party of two other girls to tough it out and continue on and I must say it was worth it. The waterfalls (called Triplet falls) were magnificent, they were very powerful, gushing water (could be the rain helped). Originally the waterfalls were used as part of a logging and milling site and much timber was removed from the area over the years, what was interesting though was that they left some of the machines (a cart pulled by men and horses and a log burning machine) in the forest and are now part of the walk.

When we did get back on the road to Port Campbell, it was still absolutely lashing it down, eventually it did ease off a bit just as we arrived into the 12 Apostles site so off we headed to see them thinking we would see nowt because of the fog and rain. We were partly right. We could see some of the limestone casts and the fog and cloud added an interesting element to the scene, but you could also see the weather was improving so we decided to take a few snaps for comparison and head off to the campsite and comeback later that night around sunset. What a difference a few hours made, the view was magnificent and I have to say the 12 Apostles (of which I think 10 or so remain, but don't quote me on it) are a very awe inspiring site and to top it off, you can just about see little penguins coming out of the water after dark and walking up the beach, this pleased Tracy no end.

The following day we did go back for a third time to get a couple of snaps in daylight and then continued up the coast stopping at some other very impressive vista points such as London Bridge and Loch Ard Gorge. We decided that we would go for Port Fairy as our stopping for that night.

On route we grabbed lunch in a park called Tower Hill just past Warrnambool but before Port Fairy. Lovely little park. In the trees literally right above where we parked our van was a koala bear, very cool to see. Now all along this drive (some 300-400km now from Melbourne) Tracy and I had seen numerous yellow triangle road signs with kangaroo's and other animals on them, but had we seen any kangaroos in the wild, had we hell. Considering the fact that there are estimated to be three kangaroo's for every person in Australia (that's over 100 million kangaroos) we wondered what the heck we were doing wrong and why we haven't seen any in the wild yet. Anyway Tracy and I decided to take a quick one hour walk around the park and no sooner did we start but what did we see... yep, emu's, not kangaroos but still pretty damn big and to see them walking around in the wild was impressive if not almost a little scary. As we continued the walk around Tracy spotted on the ground kangaroo tracks but no kangaroos. Oh well not to worry. We headed on round the walk (which incidentally is the top of a volcano, obviously extinct now) and were on our way back to the van when we saw, yes you guessed it, four or so kangaroos. Tracy was very excited and took a hundred photo's at least.

That night was spent in Port Fairy, a lovely little town that reminded me a bit of old Sacramento in the US in that it had bit of Western style theme going with some of the buildings whilst some of its bars were over a hundred years old and looked it, but that added plenty of character I thought.

So still having a few days left before heading off to Tasmania we decided to head to Halls Gap in the Grampians National park, some 80km or so north of Port Fairy. We went there because Tracy had discovered that their was a jazz festival there that weekend and as we had time to kill it seemed as good a thing to do as any.

Halls Gap was an interesting place, a very small town in the middle of a national park with little going for it other than the park and all its walks and wildlife and ironically it was inundated with (yep you guessed it) kangaroos, we saw rakes of them and they are not shy in the wild at all. Often only a few feet from us and our caravan, indeed one guy we spoke to said that they where considered pests to farmers, never considered them like that. They jump some distance and move at quite the pace, far faster than any human can move under their own steam.

As for the festival, that was damn interesting too. Lasting two days, costing $50 a ticket and featuring over a hundred bands in six tents it was quite the event. The music I thought was generally pretty good, with some bands being very good and some being down right awful, as with any festival. However the interesting thing was that Tracy and I were by far the youngest people their by a country mile. Everyone seemed to be at retirement age or older, indeed it was remarked by more than once person that it was nice to see such young people at the event. Nice to be called young in your mid 30's I think.

Anyway Halls Gap and the Jazz festival killed a couple of days and on the Monday we headed back towards Melbourne stopping the night in the non descript town of Ballarat. I am probably being unfair to Ballarat but as we were just passing through we didn't have time to site see, so a drive through town would have to do and I have to say I was unimpressed by my drive and certainly didn't feel I missed anything. The next day we made our way back to Melbourne having clocked up just over 1000km on the campervan before returning it and getting on a plane to Tasmania. I must say I really enjoyed the Great Ocean Road trip and would highly recommend it to anyone. As for Halls Gap, yeah I would recommend that too for the drive, scenery and kangaroos and most definitely for the jazz festival (if it happens to be on).

Tasmania

So we arrived into the capital of Tasmania, Hobart in the afternoon of February 16th and took a short 35 minute journey into the city from the airport. The scenery was fantastic, especially as you cross the Tasman bridge over into Hobart, you get a fantastic birds eye view of the city. We stayed at the Central Backpackers as the rough guides had said it was an excellent hostel, centrally located and great value for money. Well it was centrally located that was true, excellent hostel, I think not, very very basic indeed, we had a room and a double bed in it and that was it. Not a chair or a desk or wardrobe or anything in that room. The place looked extremely old (the bedroom and the hostel), hadn't had a lick of paint in years and not nearly enough showers and toilets for the amount of people staying there, which was well over a hundred. Whether it is good value for money or not I guess depends on the cost of other places and what you get for your money there, but certainly I didn't think it was good value at $80 a night, especially when compared to the Victoria Hall hostel we stayed at in central Melbourne.

In total Tracy and I spent 6 days in Tasmania and I thought it was a fantastic place, its amazing how many Australians haven't gone there and they are most definitely missing out, I am glad that Tracy and I didn't.

The first couple of days were spent in Hobart and we just mooched around taking in what local sights there are. So we went to the dock area and had fresh fish and chips, it was good, but I prefer the UK effort. We hung around the popular 'Salamanca Place' area and had a few drinks, we visited some of the parks and saw some the many amazing historic buildings on Macquarie and Davey Streets. We also took in the local history museum which was much bigger inside than it appeared and had displays, amongst others, on the aboriginals and Antarctica and trips there and around it. It was actually a pretty decent museum I thought. We visited the Battery district that once contained the cannons that protected the city. Now it has loads of very quaint shops and coffee houses and some amazing properties and a very pretty little garden area called Arthurs Circus (named after one of the first governors of Tasmania). I swear all the buildings in the Battery district (of which there are hundreds and hundreds) all look a century old at least and they all looked in great shape, it was a very pleasant walk around that area and a pleasant pint too in the Shipwright's Arms pub.

When we grabbed the “Wicked” on the third day (which can only be described as anything but Wicked in comparison to the “Hippie Camper” which is new, clean, has electricity and a fridge, the Wicked is damn old, dirty and has a cool box) we headed for Port Arthur (again named after that same governor who was in charge when it opened). Now we all know that Australia's beginnings are shrouded in the British exportation of convicts, but half of all the convicts that ever got “exported” got sent to Tasmania (or as it was known back then Van Diemen's Land) and the vast majority to Port Arthur. More than this though Port Arthur housed the 'worst' prisoners of all. The ones who got exported initially to New South Wales or Victoria were generally exported for more petty crimes and if they re-offended again (either inside the prison or after being paroled) they got sent to Tasmania. Incidentally Tasmania was initially called Van Diemen's Land (which I think is a great name) after the dutch king of the day, as it was founded in 1642 initially by a dutch Sailor by the name of Abel Tasman. Some years late it was renamed Tasmania after the sailor, I guess to create a new image and get rid of its auspicious past of being a penal facility and also a state where all the aboriginals were rounded up and generally killed or treated like animals (by the British I might add).

The penal facility today for most part is in ruins (from bush fires and general lack of maintenance) most of the buildings no longer exist, but that that do remain do give an idea of what it must have once been like. You could be mistaken for thinking the prisoners had it easy with the beautiful port surroundings and the magnificent gardens but somehow I doubt they did. Port Arthur is famous for the “Model Prison” an isolation prison where inmates never saw each other (based on the design of Pentonville Prison in London), where they wore masks outside of there cells, where they were locked up for 23 hours a day and subjected to silence. It was felt this would rehabilitate and teach the morals of a civil society better than being whipped or other punishment methods, invariably it lead to quite a high level of insanity patients.

Though there are some great buildings remaining at the Port Arthur facility such as the Church and the penitentiary, my favorite was a little bungalow/cottage style building called Smith O'Brien's cottage, more because of the story it stands for than the building itself. It was named after the Irish revolutionary, William Smith O'Brien who (though a protestant) did believe in one Ireland without any British influence and tried to create a regime to overthrow the British. He was unsuccessful in his coup attempts and was sent here to what I consider quite good surroundings for someone who was trying to create a new regime and overthrow a government. What I found hysterical is that whilst the British government obviously thought little of him and sent him to Van Deimen's land and Port Arthur, in Ireland there is a statue of him in Dublin on the very famous and popular O'Connell Street - fantastic.

Our last few days in Tasmania were spent around the Freycinet national park and at Bicheno. At Freycinet we had intended to do a bit of kayaking on the first day in the late afternoon for a dusk sea-life experience and a hike on the second day. Well it didn't quite go to plan. We waited around all morning and afternoon for the kayaking (taking in the good weather to be fair at Muirs beach) to be told at 4.30pm when our guides turned up that it was too dangerous, the wind was too high and the minor swell a little to large for their likings. Their was a bit of swell to be fair, but I reckon they just had somewhere else they wanted to be. It did also make me think of the higher level of safety standards you get in the western world, for had it been Vietnam or Cambodia or somewhere like that, I am sure they would not have canceled the kayaking and returned a $180 AUD (£100 approx) for a tsunami let alone a 'minor swell', I guess I was thankful for that.

The following day in the Freycinet national park we trekked up one side of a mountain (probably more a hill but it felt like a mountain) to the look out point over Wineglass Bay and then down the other side of the mountain to the Wineglass beach. The view from the look out point over the beach and beyond was fabulous and the beach equally so, but the hike in to the beach (via the lookout point) I thought was more than enough and then when I saw people hiking in and some others hiking all the way back out again with full rucksacks on I thought sack that, I take my hat off to them, but it was hard enough just carrying myself up and down the mountain let alone a backpack too. No idea how I/we are going to manage the Inca trail in a few months from now, I guess I'll be getting a guide to carry my sack for me or maybe I'll be taking a helicopter up.

That evening we stayed in Bicheno, a little town (quite nice actually) that was 30 kilometers or so further north up the coast from the Freycinet national park. There is little to do there I think other than what we did that evening which namely was the penguin tour. Now we know Tracy loves her penguins but even I thought this was cool. It was a tour through private land where the fairy penguins (also known as blue penguins, the smallest in the world) would come every night to rest before heading back to the ocean before sun up. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately we were not allowed to take photos or videos so all we could do was enjoy the tour and the sights. We must have seen 30 or so penguins in nature trekking from the beach to their homes, which incidentally each one has its own home and always treks back to that home and not some other one, very interesting that I thought. We were so close to them that we could have touched them if we were allowed. Some of them were going through a malting process shedding their old feathers for new ones and until the process is complete they will stay on land and not enter the water, or so I found out. Tracy was obviously beside herself with all the penguins and the close proximity even if the tour did only last one hour and I have to say I thought it was pretty damn decent too. From here we called it a night and discussed what we had seen.

The following day being our penultimate we were at a bit of a loss as to what to, so as we had to have the van back the following day (as we were flying out that evening) we decided to head the 200+km back towards Hobart and decided to settle for the afternoon in a little town just outside of it call Richmond. The town was very picturesque. It was old, with loads of pretty cottages and country style pubs and shops, we had a walk round taking in the old goal, church and the oldest bridge (built by the convicts) in Tasmania (and its still being used). On the way to our camp spot later that afternoon I came across a one day cricket match with two local teams. Well the game was a darn sight more exciting than the game at the MCG some two or so weeks earlier with it going down to the final over and the 10th man being caught out going for a four of the penultimate ball needing three to win. I had a couple of beers during the game and thought this just topped off Tasmania for me enjoying a free local cricket game in the high 20's on a late Sunday afternoon.

At this point I was going to go on to talk about the next and final day but I must mention the dinner that evening. So where we parked up just outside of Richmond it had a public BBQ, so there I was cooking some meat and potatoes on the BBQ, I turned around to pick up my beer off the table behind me keeping one hand on the BBQ table and a Huntsman spider ran straight across my hand. Now this is a big damn spider, not particularly dangerous, but its the size of the palm of your hand and maybe bigger and I am not exaggerating. I might of freaked a bit more if hadn't of happened also quickly but I just hope that is the end of my spider incidents in Australia.

So our final day. As we were due to head out at 5pm to Sydney, we decided to make the most of our van for the few hours remaining and headed up Mount Wellington. It is approximately 1300 meters above see level and provides amazing views of Hobart and many other places besides. On a clear day apparently you can see the freycinet national park (which is some 200+ kilometers away) , it wasn't quite that clear unfortunately but I could see Port Arthur which must be 50 or 60 kilometers away as the crow flys, great views from up there, I recommend anyone who comes to Hobart to do it. You could even cycle up and down it as we saw people do that day and I am sure we would have done it too if we'd had more time!!

So anyway that ended our time in Tasmania and another blog session, it was a fantastic place and I would definitely go visit it again, meantime bring on Sydney for the second time and the truly wicked “Hippie Camper”.

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Photos

Twelve Apostles
Yes it was wet and windy

London Bridge
The left of the bridge collapsed a few years ago

Patrick on the swings!
At Arthurs Circus

St John's Church in Richmond
Apparently the oldest in Australia

Random photo
This was just by our campsite, a sheep herding competition!

More roos
Right by our campervan

Comments

[Hippie Camper Team]

We're glad you enjoyed your trip!
It looks like you guys had a great time. The team at Hippie Camper can't wait to see you again in Sydney!